Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are microscopic vesicles that are produced by cells and that may be present in blood, interstitial fluid, or some other environment of interest. An EV can include a variety of substances disposed within, on the surface of, or within a lipid bilayer that forms the exterior wall of the EV. The composition of the cytosol, proteins, or other contents within the wall of the EV and/or the composition of membrane proteins or other elements disposed within or on the outer surface of the wall of the EV can be related to the type of cell that produced the EV, properties of the cell that produced the EV, or other factors of the origin or history of the EV. EVs can be produced by a cell, enter the circulation, and be transported, in the blood, to other locations in the body. EVs can be isolated from a blood sample and used to determine whether cancer cells or other cell types of interest that can produce EVs are present in the body.